Vocal and Choral

Berg - Lulu
Julia Migenes; Evelyn Lear; Kenneth Riegel; Metropolitan Opera; James Levine
Sony 88697910099

Alban Berg finished the short score of Lulu in the spring of 1934. Like Wozzeck, it was structured with what George Perle called a “recapitulatory aspect” in that large sections of the second half repeat or alter movements from the first half. Berg orchestrated Acts 1, 2, and the first 268 bars of Act 3; the orchestral interlude of Act 3 and the closing scene were thrust into the Lulu Suite as a promo piece suggested and conducted by Kleiber in November 1934. Delayed by the commission of his violin concerto, his sudden illness and death left the remainder of Act 3 unorchestrated. Erwin Stein published Acts 1 and 2 and had engraved the first 70 pages of Act 3 when the short score was locked away by the widow Helene in her lawyers' safe. Frau Berg supposedly saw uncomfortable parallels between an autumnal feminine interest of her husband and the seductive anti-heroine Lulu. Act 3 was micro-filmed, there was a legal dispute and then Frau Berg died in 1976. Contrary to some stories, all but 86 bars could be orchestrated with a mathematical conviction. Happily, the task fell to Friedrich Cerha, a composer devoted to Webern, Schoenberg and Berg. The Berg scholar Anthony Pople generously admitted: “Whatever its minor shortcomings, Cerha's realization is brilliant work, and there is no reason to think that there will ever be a necessity for the completion of Act 3 in full score to be undertaken afresh.”

The three-act version appeared in Paris on February 24, 1979 starring Canada’s Teresa Stratas to rave reviews. Franz Mazura was Dr. Schön and Kenneth Riegel his son Alwa, both of whom then appeared at the Met in 1980 in the production recorded in this beautiful DVD set. Lulu is Julia Migenes, a seductive and street-wise survivor, with a sharp dramatic edge. Evelyn Lear (a wonderful Lulu herself) plays the lesbian Countess Geschwitz, completely at home in this music and convincing as the only truly honourable character in the opera. Both the acting and the singing are compelling. James Levine loves Berg and draws a nuanced performance of this complex and fascinating work. If you have not previously been won over by Lulu, she may well seduce you with this appearance.

Broken Hearts and Madmen

Patricia O'Callaghan; Gryphon Trio

Analekta AN 2 9870

Classical sensibilities applied to popular music should enhance, rather than sacrifice the spirit and intent of the original music. It rarely makes sense to over-beautify the themes of everyday life and we all can site instances where the marriage of pop and classical does not quite work. In this recording, however, Patricia O’Callaghan and the Gryphon Trio, deliver savvy and artful new interpretations. It all begins with choosing ingeniously artful songs. Songs by the likes of Laurie Anderson, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Elvis Costello are interspersed with those by Llasa de Sela, Los Lobos and Astor Piazzola as well as traditional Latin pieces, offering a diverse and clever mix most suitable for orchestration. Interpreted through brilliant arrangements by Roberto Occhipinti, Hilario Duran and Andrew Downing, the results are stunning, soulful and profoundly affective.

The trio’s playing is superb and complex and O’Callaghan’s vocal nuances are delivered with a heartfelt, dynamic, yet surprisingly light and subtle touch. Most notable is her ability to keep the extreme emotional intensity going despite the incessant repetition in Elvis Costello’s I want you. Along with her gorgeous singing, O’Callaghan’s expert facility with languages is remarkable in the Spanish and French selections. Through a decade developing a chamber music series for the Lula Lounge, the Gryphon Trio has finely honed their talent for skilfully adapting classical technique to the contemporary audience and this shines through beautifully in this recording.

Concert Note: Patricia O’Callaghan and the Gryphon Trio will launch “Broken Hearts and Madmen” at the Lula Lounge on October 2.

VOCAL Note: For reviews of eight new Sony opera re-issues see Bruce Surtees’ Old Wine in New Bottles

A Lesson in Love

Kate Royal; Malcolm Martineau

EMI 9 48536 2

No, Kate Royal is not a stage name of the Duchess of Cambridge. It is the real name of a young English soprano, whose ascent to fame has accelerated since one special evening in 2004, when as an understudy in The Magic Flute at Glyndebourne Festival Opera she got to sing Pamina when a diva got sick. Sounds like a typical operatic story, except there is nothing typical about Ms. Royal. The child of singers, she studied at the Guildhall School and won the Kathleen Ferrier trophy. Her happy association with Glyndebourne continues, with great results such as the recently-reviewed Don Giovanni, with Royal as Donna Elvira.

Her lyric soprano seems particularly adept at conveying emotion – her heartbroken and confused Elvira was, well, haunting. But Ms. Royal also reserves 5 months of the year for concert performances and rather than relying on existing song cycles, she has created her own – with some great collaborators. “A Lesson in Love” is an extensive cycle of songs penned by Schumann, Wolf, Schubert, Tosti, Bridge, Copland, Ravel, Fauré, Britten, Debussy and Strauss. They are artfully woven into four stages of a woman’s life, being “Waiting,” “The Meeting,” “The Wedding” and “Betrayal.” These phases are neatly spanned by two versions of William Bolcom’s Waitin (sic). Royal navigates without effort through English, German and French texts, infusing each song with her personal mark. How personal? Well, dear reader, listen to Canteloube’s “Tchut, tchut” from the Songs of the Auvergne and judge for yourself!

Berg - Lulu

Laura Aikin; Cornelia Kallisch; Alfred Muff; Peter Straka; Zurich Opera; Franz Welser-Möst

ArtHaus Musik 101 565

Since its premiere in Zurich in 1937 Lulu cannot escape controversy. Granted, in 1937 the subject-matter of a sociopathic prostitute was as controversial as it is today, but there is so much more at stake here. Left unfinished by Berg, the opera was completed in the 1970s from Berg’s sketches and discarded drafts. Even so, this recording features the original, unfinished score, both to commemorate the 65th anniversary of its premiere and to satisfy those, who claim that Berg left the work unfinished on purpose.

It is an opera with probably the most complex female character in history. In parts Violetta, Lady Macbeth and Mélisande, Lulu is as conflicted as she is beguiling. The production takes a deep, psychological view of her character. She is a victim of childhood sexual abuse, illuminated by silent vignettes projected throughout. She also is treated by her husbands and lovers in a proprietary, misogynistic way - illustrated by female mannequin body parts encased in plastic that populate the stage. Like some macabre Damien Hirst sculptures, the body parts point to the commodification of Lulu and explain her coldness and at times hatred towards others. This approach actually works, portraying the heroine as damaged beyond repair and thus tragic, not just loathsome. As the principals sing the difficult music of Berg with ease (with Laura Aikin and Alfred Muff deserving of a special mention), Franz Welser-Möst handles the orchestra beautifully. Fair warning, though: given the graphic nature of the projections, this may be difficult for some viewers to watch. This Lulu is not for the faint of heart.

Songspin

Juice vocal ensemble

Nonclassical Recordings (www.nonclassical.co.uk)

Traditional, classical and new music meet head on in the debut album by a cappella vocal trio Juice. Bringing art music forward to a hip, modern sensibility, their performances are enjoyed from Wigmore Hall to Austin's SXSW festival. Despite arrangements that are incredibly complex and vocally demanding, their delivery is crystal clear, clean and precise whether mimicking the babbling brook in Paul Robinson's Triadic Riddles of Water or a pointillistic, northern lights-like brilliance in Elisabeth Luyten's Of the Snow. With the use of breath, sighs, sonorous and dissonant harmonies, these women demonstrate how the primal resonance of the human voice has the ability to shape (or even bend) our psyches. Downright eerie are arrangements of the traditional English folksong Cruel Mother as well as group member Kerry Andrew's compositions Lullaby for the Witching Hour and luna-cy. Both a sense of wonder, and fear of the tenuous relationship between mother and child is evoked through the use of punctuated breath and long, languorous sighs in an arrangement of Gillian Welch & T-Bone Walker's Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby. Extremes in rhythmic complexities are perfectly executed in James Lindsay’s Sanbiki No Kasikoi Saru sounding almost like a game of skill in which none of the three voices trip or falter. They end off the recording with seven playful, quirky remixes; having already taken the listener to the edge, they then extend far beyond.

Mozart - Don Giovanni

Gerald Finley; Glyndebourne; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Vladimir Jurowski

EMI 0 72017 9

It seems that in every baritone’s career, a Don Giovanni will happen. Given that there are some tremendous baritones out there, it would mean many a splendid production. Not necessarily so, unfortunately – just ask poor Brett Polegato, trapped in the COC’s tepid and messy effort. Surrounded by sub-par voices and dressed as a low-rent gigolo, even Polegato’s beautiful interpretation of the role could not save the production. Gerald Finley fares much better at Glyndebourne – the Kent production works for the most part and the principals are uniformly splendid, even though the OAE playing is uncharacteristically low energy. Nobody needs convincing that Finley is one of the best Giovanni’s on record – here less gigolo and more Berlusconi’s “Bunga Bunga” in the contemporized production. He is not tragic, but simply oblivious to the havoc he wreaks – a narcissistic psychopath if there ever was one. But it is Kate Royal, as confused and heartbroken Donna Elvira who steals the show. Luca Pisaroni, in a fine voice, is not cynical enough as Leporello, even in the Catalogue Aria, but sounds beautifully throughout. Isabel Leonard, beautiful to listen and look at, seems a tad too sophisticated as the naïve country bumpkin. The occasionally revolving set works well, except for the chase scenes and the finale. The most grievous harm of this production is done to the Commendatore. Traditionally, the statue and its subsequent re-animation are a source of a chill down the spine. Here, the freshly dug-out zombie evokes unwanted comedy, not horror. Ah, if only opera directors knew when to leave well enough alone…

The Ballad Singer

Gerald Finley; Julius Drake

Hyperion CDA67830

Singers crave novel material for their recordings: obscure works, cherished favourites… whatever it takes to create tempting new song packages. Baritone Gerald Finley’s recent release samples the Ballad repertoire and offers a wonderfully chosen program ranging from dark gothic musings of 19th century German and English composers to the devilishly clever writing of Cole Porter.

Finley lives up to his reputation for consistent and solid performance meeting the need of each ballad’s text with an impressive dramatic acuity that elevates the finest singers above the rest of their colleagues. Most notable is his amazing portrayal of the demon in Schubert’s Erlkönig where he assumes a strangely nasal vocal character and deliberately sings the Erlkönig’s extended passages just slightly flat to drive home the evil in the text. I’ve never heard this done before and it’s stunningly effective.

Similarly, Hugo Wolf’s Der Feuerreiter also offers some character vocal moments that most singers simply never attempt. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Finley’s multiple impersonations of narrator, mollusc and socialite in Cole Porter’s The Tale of The Oyster. Eating at a seafood restaurant will never be the same.

Long-time accompanist and artistic partner Julius Drake does so much more than just play the notes to back-up the voice. In Mahler’s Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen he crafts a remarkable orchestral colour palette from the keyboard. Drake knows how to be pianistically comedic as well as dramatic, romantic as well as impish. His artistic contribution is a significant reason for this disc’s success.